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Duke Nukem Forever update to increase weapon slots on PC

Gearbox has announced that Duke Nukem Forever will receive a patch on PC that, among a few other changes, will increase Duke's single-player weapon slots from two to four.

Duke Nukem's arsenal is about to double, ladies and gentlemen.

According to Gearbox Community Manager (and Shacknews alum) Chris Faylor, a patch is currently in the works for Duke Nukem Forever that will increase Duke's inventory slots, allowing him to carry up to four weapons at once during the single-player campaign.

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According to the post from Faylor, the weapon update is currently PC-specific, though he notes more details about the update "including those coming to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360" will be revealed "as they're finalized."

The PC version will also add support for Valve's Anti-Cheat System (VAC), push-to-talk voice chat, the ability to adjust field of view, and other unnamed "fixes and improvements" currently being tested.

Though four weapons is better than two, it is still far from Duke's origin, as the character could once carry every weapon he found during his past adventures.

In 2003, 3D Realms boss George Broussard pondered whether or not Duke Nukem Forever could "get away" with reducing Duke's arsenal down to two at a time in in Shacknews' own Chatty in the face of shifting first-person shooter design.

Following Duke's re-reveal to the world at PAX 2010, Chatty users threw blame at Gearbox for limiting Duke's weapon slots to two; however, Broussard was quick to note it was a decision made long before Gearbox became involved in reaction to a growing console market:

Yeah, blame us for it if you want. It may change in the future and I don't know what will happen with it, but it was us. I stand by it too, as you cannot discount designing games for a modern world and part of that world is consoles where the bulk of the sales can be. And on those consoles you have a controller. We tried for a long time to support lots of guns but we simply could not find a nice way to map it to a controller, despite trying 4-5 designs. We gave it enough time and decided to stop swimming against the current and adopt what was basically the "standard". It's not 1996 anymore.

Shacknews has contacted Gearbox to learn whether or not upcoming console updates will include the new 'four weapon limit,' but has not received a response at the time of publishing.

What is the sweet-spot for you, Shackers? Is four weapons good enough, do you still long for the days when Duke was bad-ass enough to carry every weapon he came across, or did Broussard get it right in 2010?